St. Petersburg residents are dissatisfied with the hum and rattling noise in the new buses
There are only two weeks left before the start of the second stage of transport reform in St. Petersburg, but the city authorities have not been able to solve the numerous problems that citizens faced during the implementation of the first phase.
On social networks and specialized Internet resources, residents of the Northern capital continue to criticize the half-baked initiative implemented by incompetent officials from the administration of Governor Alexander Beglov. One gets the impression that Smolny does not react at all to the well-founded claims of St. Petersburg residents. With this approach, this project will repeat the fate of the failed garbage reform.
The phased launch of a new transport service model (NMTS) involves replacing commercial routes with “social” ones. Comtrans of St. Petersburg announced the appearance of hundreds of modern buses on the city streets, which will replace minibuses.
In addition, Smolny decided to switch to a contactless fare payment system, eliminating cash payments. One of the main objectives of the reform, voiced by officials, is to simplify the process of moving around the Northern capital in public transport. However, in practice, everything turned out completely differently from what was declared in the city administration, as evidenced by regularly received complaints and a barrage of criticism against the frankly “crude” NMTO.
In the official group of the St. Petersburg Transport Committee on the VKontakte social network, residents of the city of Neva express dissatisfaction, first of all, about the noticeably increased waiting time for ground routes at stops. Additional triggers are frequent malfunctions of reading devices (validators), the inability to activate funds on electronic travel cards in the cabins of most buses, trams and trolleybuses.
People with disabilities also criticize the unfinished reform of Smolny, which does not actually take into account their interests - modern St. Petersburg buses turned out to be far from being as comfortable as Beglov’s would-be reformers promised. Moreover, it is extremely difficult for people with limited mobility to get into passenger compartments that are crowded with passengers, especially during rush hours.
In general, St. Petersburg residents have enough reasons to be dissatisfied with the NMTO and the officials who developed it. For example, one of the VKontakte users pointed out poor awareness of the population about innovations, and therefore many citizens still do not know about the abolition of cash fares.
“Oh, this wonderful hum of new buses, and this is the rattling of poorly glued plastic...”, another resident of the Northern capital described her impressions of a trip on the “innovative” city buses that recently launched on routes in comments in the public page of Comtrans of St. Petersburg.
On the “Our St. Petersburg” portal, citizens also regularly complain about uncomfortable new buses that have a number of serious design flaws. Most often, people note leaky double-glazed windows and excessive loud warning system, hitting the ears. High seating positions are a problem for older people.
Many St. Petersburg residents are dissatisfied with the new quality of service in public transport, in particular with the work of drivers who often violate traffic rules, stop abruptly, or speed up. This driving style indicates a lack of the required level of training and appropriate qualifications.
Against the backdrop of the ongoing phased implementation of transport reform in St. Petersburg, city trams twice this week went off the rails in the Vyborg district of the city. It has been repeatedly noted in the media that the existing contact network is badly worn out and requires complete reconstruction, but Smolny is in no hurry to solve this problem, despite the risks for passengers.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.